I know I'm in the minority, but I've always preferred "Help!" to "A Hard Day's Night". I respect the earlier film's place in history, and it's unquestionably funny. But it doesn't play as well to a modern audience, I find, having programmed both in small local film festivals. The audience seemed to get lost and bored with AHDN, having difficulty following the very British dialog, and lacking the period context necessary to get the most out of the film. By contrast, they were mostly delighted with "Help!", finding the story and characters charming and the musical selections more to their liking. I feel pretty much the same way, even knowing how much the Beatles themselves disliked it. Of course there are those troubling ethnic stereotypes... but if we can praise Peter Sellers and Blake Edwards' "The Party" (a film I find very difficult to watch for that reason) we should be able to put this film in its proper cultural context as well.
Of course there are other reasons to do it before 35. Namely, I don't want to be attending my kid's high school graduation when I'm pushing 60. The early 40s are pretty much the perfect time for that empty nest. Sell the house, downsize to a nice little condo, start enjoying that disposable income a little more, focus on each other a LOT more. To each his or her own, of course, that's just how I see it. I love my daughter but I'm glad I didn't have to send her off to grade school this morning.
If I were in charge of explaining that away, I might suggest that these Klingons are in a genetic transitional stage between the original (and later restored) very-ridgy version and the enhanced, ridge-free version. Perhaps it took two or three generations for them to go completely ridgeless. If that's the case, this may be a reasonable middle ground. Just an idea.
I'm a data engineer for a hospital, and as such I work with medical lab results quite a bit. My favorite potential metal band name to come from all that is "Fecal Occult Blood".
I would love to cross-reference this with similar maps for opiods and meth. No predictions or anything... well, yes predictions but I'll keep them to myself.
I've got you all beat... guitar players. Jeez, have you ever seen Sweet and Lowdown? I cringe every time Sean Penn picks up a guitar and doesn't even attempt to fake it convincingly. Piano's bad too, but at least you can shoot around that.
And please be sure to pay extra attention to the beautiful music by true genius Adrian Belew. He's one of those "ought to be a household name" guys. In addition to his own magnificent solo career he's played with David Bowie, Frank Zappa, King Crimson, Talking Heads, Laurie Anderson, Joan Armatrading, and dozens of others I failed to remember in the past ten seconds. Piper marks his first foray into film scoring, and it's wonderful.
You just know Stefon was at this party.